Basd To Award Bids For Roofing Work At Four Schools

Bid awards totaling $549,221 for roofing work at four schools will be recommended when the Bethlehem Area School Board meets at 8 tonight in the Liberty High School amphitheater.

Supermason Enterprises of Portland has entered the low bids of $261,600 and $130,030 for complete roof replacements at the Northeast Middle School and Spring Garden Elementary School, respectively. Five other companies bid on these projects.

Supermason also is the lowest of six bidders on a partial roof replacement and related work at Marvine Elementary School. The firm bid $28,630.

Pleasant Valley Roofing of Springtown is recommended for a $128,961 contract to put a new roof on Clearview Elementary School. Seven firms bid on this contract.

Michael Butryn, director of buildings and grounds, said all four projects will call for the placing of a rubber roof membrane. He said the roofs at these buildings have had leaks. The roof replacement work is being timed to coincide with asbestos encapsulation projects inside these buildings.

In other business, the School Board will receive the administration's request for the reassignment of Carl G. Langkamer, a central staff curriculum specialist, to the faculty of Liberty High School where he will teach art and become departmental supervisor for fine and practical arts.

Acting Superintendent Thomas J. Doluisio recommended in his 1986-87 budget proposals that all six curriculum specialist posts on the central staff be eliminated as a cost-cutting measure. He said he made the recommendation reluctantly.

However, the School Board restored the positions prior to budget adoption in June. There was a feeling among some Board members that most of the administrative structure should remain intact until a new permanent superintendent is chosen and has a chance to evaluate his or her staffing needs.

One specialist's post has been vacant since the retirement earlier this year of Robert W. Zimmerman. It does not appear likely that Zimmerman's or Langkamer's slots will be filled, at least until a permanent successor to Dr. Robert L. LaFrankie is named. LaFrankie left the superintendency on Feb. 1.

The Board's agenda includes the resignation for personal reasons of Gregory Naudascher, supervisor for curriculum and instruction at Broughal Middle School. He has 15 years service in the Bethlehem district. He has accepted the principalship of the Middle Smithfield Township School in the East Stroudsburg Area School District.

George VanDoren, a language arts teacher at Northeast, is being recommended as Naudascher's replacement at Broughal.

Each of the four middle schools has a curriculum supervisor. While Doluisio recommended their retention, some Board members sought during the budget debate to eliminate the posts, contending that they represented administrative over-staffing at a time when the district was caught in a financial pinch.

However, many speakers associated with the Concerned Parents Council argued against staffing cuts that they said would disrupt the successful middle school programs. The positions remain in the budget for 1986-87.

The Board will be asked to endorse an attendance boundary change that will ensure all fifth grade students promoted from the Governor Wolf elementary school will be assigned to East Hills Middle School and, ultimately, to Freedom High School.

Most Governor Wolf students are promoted to East Hills under existing boundary lines, but each year a small number of fifth-graders (three to five students) from the Liberty Park neighborhood are required to attend Northeast and then Liberty.

In an explanatory note accompanying the agenda item, the administration said that letters from parents indicate that these few students now being assigned to Northeast would prefer to go to East Hills along with classmates with whom they have spent their six-year elementary stint.

Since so few students are involved, the boundary change would not disrupt enrollment patterns for the middle and senior high schools, it was stated.